Book Reviews: Japanese Singers of Tales: Ten Centuries of Performed Narrative. By Alison MacQueen Tokita . Surrey: Ashgate, 2015. Pp. xvi 294 CD. ISBN 10: 075465379X; ISBN 13: 978-0754653790.
The musical narrative, or ‘katarimono’ in Japanese, is a form of performing art in which a story is “sung” or “performed” by a single or several performers. The musical style of katarimono is basically “syllabic,” where one syllable of text is assigned with one musical pitch and therefore the content of the text is easily followed by listeners. In contrast, utaimono is ‘melismatic,’ performed with several pitches (embellishment, or melisma) on each syllable of text. Various genres of narratives were born and have been enjoyed in a number of different settings and contexts in Japan since medieval times, and eventually these narratives have come to make up a large portion of what is now known as traditional Japanese musical culture. As the subtitle “Ten Centuries of Performed Narrative” suggests, this book intends to explore the narrative traditions in Japan diachronically. It follows the narrative genres from their origins up to contemporary times; kōshiki or shōmyō (Buddhist preaching) (chapter 2), heike (the musical recitation of the Tale of the Heike with biwa lute accompaniment) (chapter 3), kōwaka and nō (narratives for dance and masked theatre) (chapter 4), gidayu-bushi narrative for ningyō-jōruri (puppet theatre) (chapter 5), and jōruri narratives in kabuki (bungo-kei jōruri, nagauta, ōzatsuma-bushi) (chapters 6 and 7).
